Finding the Water Holes

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I am reading Anne Bogart’s new book AND THEN, YOU ACT: Making art in an unpredictable world. She begins her introduction with a story about the South African writer Antjie Krog. She describes meeting a nomadic desert poet in Senegal who described the role of poets in his culture:

“The job of the poet is to remember where the water holes are. The survival of the whole group depends on a few water holes scattered around the desert. When his people forget where the water is, the poet can lead them to it.”

Bogart writes: “What an apt metaphor for the role of the artist in any culture. The water is the history, the memory, the juice, and the elixir of a shared experience.”

Playwrights know where the water holes are and they can lead us to them with their stories, language, and dramatic imaginations. I have always believed that a contemporary theater must aggressively go to the edges of society and tell stories that no one else will tell. To involve people at the deepest level, we tell them stories. Stories fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living . . . not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal . . . emotional experience.

To do this we must engage our audience with the power of story. We must engage their emotions. And the key to their hearts is a story.

—Ed Herendeen

The World of the Play

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I just returned from New York where I had a productive meeting with the playwright Eisa Davis. We are producing the World Premiere of her play THE HISTORY OF LIGHT. We discussed casting ideas, the use of music/sound design, and set design ideas. We also agreed to have Liesl Tommy direct the production. Liesl directed the critically acclaimed STICK FLY at the Theater Festival last season. I am looking forward to working with her and Eisa on THE HISTORY OF LIGHT.

I enjoy the pre-production process of producing a Five Play rotating repertory. Now that the season has been selected I am focusing on reading each of the scripts. I love the pre-production phase. It begins with reading and re-reading the scripts, making notes, doing research, asking questions of the text, searching out details and making personal connections to the work. During this time I begin to create a mental movie of how I see the action in the plays unfolding. So I am exploring the scripts and making discoveries. The key ideas/moments usually arrive early in the process. I have learned to trust my first impressions when reading a script.

I find this pre-production period invigorating and creatively stimulating. I have learned to trust my intuition at every step in this process. During this pre-production phase I immerse myself into the world of the play, seeking out the heart of the playwright.

Every play has its own world. Some plays have fuzzy worlds, incomplete worlds, inconsistent worlds and hard-to-grasp worlds. And some plays have well-formed worlds.

The world of the play limits a play as a frame limits a picture. It limits the action. Creating the world of the play means gathering together those elements and moments that are alike-putting sameness together and bringing harmony and understanding to the component parts.

The pre-production period is one of exploration. It is the time that I ask the essential questions: what does the play represent? What is the main idea? Why is this play important? Why does it deserve to be witnessed? What universal truth does it illuminate? What excites me about this work? What aspect of the drama fires my imagination? What about the script makes me zealous and impassioned? Why does the play move me? What about the material gives me a deep feeling of satisfaction? What in the play makes it worthy of an audience attention? Why is it compelling?

These are just some of the questions that I am exploring as I prepare to meet with each of our playwrights and the design team.

—Ed Herendeen

Beau Willimon and Farragut North

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Beau Willimon and I had coffee a couple of weeks ago to discuss our upcoming production of his terrific new play FARRAGUT NORTH. We met in Midtown NY at Le Pain Quotidien and we had a very productive conversation about his new political drama. We are both looking forward to working together on the Washington/Baltimore Metro area premiere.

I learned that Beau has first hand knowledge of political campaigns. While an undergraduate at Columbia in 1998, he volunteered for Senator Charles E. Schumer’s Senate campaign against the Republican incumbent, Alfonse D’Amato. He was also a junior staff member for Howard Dean. So he comes to his observations about political campaigns honestly.  His best friend is Jay Carson, who was Governor Dean’s twenty something press secretary in 2004 . . . and in many ways the inspiration for the play.

“I don’t know if I’m critiquing politics as much as being accurate and honest” . . .Willimon said in a recent NY Times interview. “Everyone knows to a certain extent that there’s a lot of nasty and duplicitous and unsavory stuff in a campaign, but some people might be surprised at how nasty things are behind the scenes.”

Beau’s agent sent me an early draft of the script in August and I was blown away by the story. I knew immediately that I had to direct it. It has everything that I look for in a good script: a powerful, timely story; great conflict, terrific dialogue, strong, believable characters and an important message. FARRAGUT NORTH is a signature CATF play. It provides “red meat” for the CATF core audience. I am thrilled that we received the rights to produce the MID-ATLANTIC PREMIERE.

FARRAGUT NORTH is a fresh take on old political tricks. Beau Willimon lifts the veil on American Politics. Washington Post theater critic, Peter Marks said in his review of the recent NY premiere: “If the ‘West Wing’ offered up politics as an inspirational highway to hope, Beau Willimon’s spicy, new campaign stage dramedy, FARRAGUT NORTH, returns us to those comforting, cutthroat side streets”.

The play charts the painfully inevitable fall of Stephen, a 25-year-old press secretary working on the presidential campaign of a leading democrat . . . set in Iowa . . . its caucus time . . . and votes need to be counted. Stephen is a whip-smart and cocky, wunderkind who is so chummy with reporters that he thinks he can manipulate them with his charm and charisma. But there is a chill in the Iowa landscape . . . a storm is coming.

Willimon, like Dietz, is a terrific storyteller with an original voice. He has written an aggressive drama that will engage you with the power of story. The play is a potent reminder that politics is a high-stakes game where one wrong liaison can finish you off.

—Ed Herendeen

Steven Dietz and Yankee Tavern

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I had a great conversation last week with Steven Dietz regarding our upcoming production of his new play YANKEE TAVERN. I am thrilled that Steven is returning to Shepherdstown. He premiered THE NINA VARIATIONS at CATF in 1996. He is a playwright that I truly connect with. His thirty plus plays have been widely produced in the United States and around the world. I recommend reading LONELY PLANET, PRIVATE EYES, FICTION, HALCYON DAYS and THE NINA VARIATIONS. He has an original voice and he knows the power of a good story.

Steven first told me about YANKEE TAVERN when I saw him last February in Denver at The Colorado New Play Summit. He sent me an early draft and we did a Stage Reading of it at CATF last July. The reading went really well and I am looking forward to producing it this summer.

YANKEE TAVERN is about a young man who seeks to debunk many of the wilder conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks—and then finds himself caught up in one of those very theories.

In a recent interview Dietz says “Conspiracies are catnip to a playwright—there’s a level of obsession and outlandishness to the personalities involved and there’s always just enough of the “truth” to ground the actions. And in the case of 9/11, the discussions (however feasible or off the grid) are endless. I couldn’t resist the story.”

Great stories beg to be told. And true artists are compelled to tell them. Steven Dietz is one of our best storytellers . . . he has an independent spirit and a distinctive voice. I am compelled to produce this dramatic thriller on our stage this summer. Dietz is a writer who is not afraid to go to the edges of society to tell stories that no one else will tell.

Playwrights are the theater’s storytellers, they broaden our minds, they engage, provoke, inspire and ultimately—they connect us.

—Ed Herendeen